New GS Owner

[Bendrider]

Hello everyone,

I just picked up my GS today. It’s a 1980 GS 850 G. It needs some cosmetic cleanup but overall it’s in good shape. I’m getting ready to do the fluids, plugs and brakes next. She had her first bath tonight. What I do know is that it had an oil leak in the head where it meets the crankcase. All gaskets in the head are new.
It has fuel stabilizer in it but it’s been in there for a while, no rust in the tank.

Cool mods:
Corbin saddle that is a sofa.
Oil cooler mod.
YSS rear shocks.
Plugs for heated gear.
Plexiglas wind screen.

Overall I am excited about dialing it in and riding soon.

But first I have a lot of reading/learning to do about this
bike.

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Welcome.

Well, as a point of clarification, the head doesn’t meet the crankcase. The head sits atop the cylinders, the cylinders sit atop the case. Regardless, head gasket leak could maybe be slowed or stopped by retorqueing the nuts inside the head which will be accessible when you take the valve cover off to check valve clearances. If you have to take the head off to replace the head gasket, you’ll likely disturb the base gasket and should replace that at the same time. Then since you’ve got access to the rings, may as well do those too. Head’s off, should I do valve job? I could go on. You can see how a little oil leak can snowball into a lot more work. Oh the joy of owning an old bike. Evaluate if it’s just a tiny leak that you can live with for a while, or something that needs attention right away.

Anyway, if you haven’t come across it yet, BikeCliffs Website is a treasure trove of manuals and how-tos. And the Top 10 Newbie Mistakes Thread is a good first read. Both are linked in my Signature.

And we like pictures. Best way to share pics on the forum is by hosting them on a site like Imgur or Flickr. Also a link below to see how that works as well.

[Gorminrider]

Picture!
Hi, Bendrider! Hopefully you've found the library here- a great start. goto

https://gsarchive.bwringer.com/

[salty_monk]

Yeah this thread is totally useless with pictures Welcome to the madhouse